


Shatterdome, 2:32am

by Void (EroEmo)



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Acts of Kindness, Cooking, Fluff without Plot, M/M, Newt is a bad cook, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Pre-Relationship, and Herms is a kind colleague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 06:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14158446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EroEmo/pseuds/Void
Summary: Dr Gottlieb couldn't really be certain about many things in his life, but he did know two things for sure.One, his colleague of ten years was a walking disaster with a brilliant brain.Two, it never was completely quiet in the lab unless something bad was about to happen.When you think of it, it was only a matter of time before those two would combine.





	Shatterdome, 2:32am

For the first time in a long time, it was quiet.

Hermann couldn’t tell if it was because of his own loss of touch with reality or because of some other, unknown to him, reasons. The only thing he knew for sure was that the silence in the lab seemed out of place, as if violating unwritten rules. Rules such as ‘No Gruesome Kaiju Parts On This Side Of The Lab’ or ‘No Playing Rock Out Loud After 4pm.’ 

He usually appreciated the quiet of his own space, as much as he could call it his. It never was  _ his  _ as the book he owned or sweaters he wore. The edge where  _ his  _ ended and  _ Newton’s  _ began was fuzzy, conventional. Hermann enjoyed sticking to it nevertheless, even such blurred principles already steadying him up, giving a frame of a whole picture.

Another rule, which seemed to appear out of the blue and then settle itself just fine, was that Newton had an unnerving habit of breaking  _ all  _ of the other ones, even though he had previously agreed on them. Sometimes it was out of boredom, just to annoy Hermann. Some other times it was by accident, and he could tell by that tiny quirk of his colleague's lips that indicated remorse, were a form of an apology.

Now everything seemed right and that was not right at all.

Hermann stopped typing his report for Pentecost, glancing up from the bright screen. The lab was dim, some lights not working and others obscured with dust and Newt’s plants. Kaiju guts were neatly sorted into various containers with formaldehyde, no brain parts or intestines left to rot. Papers also seemed more or less sorted, divided into three bigger piles than rather being scattered all over the lab as usual.

He glanced at the clock, time being only a construct but nevertheless a useful one.

Considering it was merely half past two in the morning, Geiszler should still be in here. A man with so much energy and such a heavy insomnia like him usually went to sleep around four or five, if at all. The fact he was nowhere to be seen now was somewhat worrisome.

Hermann wouldn’t tag himself as having a good insight into human nature, it was a fairly unknown field to him. He was a mathematician and hence, he could pick up patterns pretty well. Newton’s pattern was that, no matter how irregular his day/night cycles were, he should be in the lab now. In the kitchen at the very least.

He sighed as he reached for his cane, unsettling feeling his main motivation to get up. He grabbed his empty mug, not really being in the mood for another tea but knowing perfectly well that if he was about to see his colleague, he would need an excuse. Even if not for Geiszler, then for him and his anxiousness, which was slowly building up in his guts without a clear reason.

Despite his will a quiet sigh of relief escaped his mouth as he spotted Newton by the counter, apparently making an attempt to prepare… pancakes?

“What are you doing?”

Geiszler looked up from the pan, giving him one of those irritating grins of his.

“Um, a midnight snack?” He answered innocently, as if he was caught doing something illegal and now tried to hide it. “I know some people, like you, function thanks to nothing more than tea or coffee, spite and  _ sometimes  _ some other substances but I am unfortunately a mere mortal and therefore I need to feed my body with nutrients.”

Hermann blinked at him, made a step closer to peek into the pan, and then sighed heavily, seeing what was put in there.

“I’d rather say you are clearly trying to have a food poisoning, if your intention was truly to eat that,” he pointed with his chin at the questionable mixture of flour, milk, eggs with remnants of shells and some other things which were not supposed to be in there. Not by conventional measures, that is.

“Are you implying I’m a bad cook?” Newton raised his eyebrows, as if insulted by such a trivial remark. “You have never eaten anything made by me except for tea or simple sandwiches and let me tell you dude, this is a little bit of a poor experience to judge my cooking skills.”

He pointed a spatula covered with dough at him, a few drops ruining a ruined sweater of his even more; now there was chalk dust  _ and  _ dough on it.

“I’d refrain from commenting on your dish if I didn’t know myself how pancakes are  _ supposed  _ to be made, Newton,” Hermann said with a click of his tongue, the smell only now reaching his nostrils. “What have you put in there, for God’s sake?”

“A bit of this and that,” Geiszler answered ambiguously, returning to his previous task. “Also the problem with you, Hermann, is that you stick to the recipes way too much. Those are not mathematical formulas! You  _ are  _ supposed to experiment a bit, to put a lil of your own self into what you’re preparing, you-”

“Is that fish?”

“Tuna, to be precise, thank you for noticing my touch-ups,” the man smiled at him as if everything was fine, as if this was okay.

This was far from even being on the margin of being  _ okay. _

“If you were so hungry, why didn’t you go out to eat? Or called for a take-out?” Hermann asked helplessly, averting his gaze from the disaster in the pan.

Newton shrugged, as if wondering about the answer himself. Another hideous trait of his.

“Too lazy, I guess,” he flipped a pancake, reaching for a nearby plate. “Also I thought that maybe,  _ just maybe,  _ I’d make enough pancakes for us both to share? Perhaps. Oh, and I don’t really have cash and you know they don’t accept cards in that place we like to go-”

“You cooked for me?” Hermann raised an eyebrow, warily looking at the already made pancake.

“For us  _ both,  _ yes, kind of? I don’t know man, I just thought that it would be a nice thing to do? But,” he pointed his spatula at him again, eyes narrowing behind glasses. “You’ll now get none since you dared to criticize my cooking skills without even  _ trying _ first.”

His colleague took a plate with the single, horrible pancake of his own making and took a bite. It took him about three seconds to stop chewing on it, swallowing it and then eyeing the rest of it as if it stabbed him in the chest. The pure act of betrayal.

Before Newton had a chance to admit his own failure in this matter, Hermann took his spatula and the bowl with the remaining dough, examining it closely. It seemed like an ordinary one, and so he made himself taste it.

It was bland and a bit too watery. He could deal with that.

“What are you doing?” Newton asked with a slight suspicion in his voice as he saw him reaching to different cabinets and throwing different spices into the bowl.

“Pancakes that are  _ edible,  _ Newton,” he answered, carefully sieving the flour.

“Why?” The other man asked, bewildered, peeking into the bowl and then again at Hermann’s face. “Dude, if you’re trying to show me you’re better at this stuff then don’t bother, you already have proven yourself that one time when the whole Shatterdome has run out of sugar, and you were nice enough to make something sweet, like,  _ literally _ , for Mako. In other words  _ I know  _ you can cook, pretty well to be more precise, so yeah, if that was your point then-”

“Newton,” he looked up from the pan, his gaze fixed on his colleague of almost ten years. “It would be a waste to throw everything out and also you said you were hungry. If I can make something out of what I have in here, then I  _ will,  _ so please, shut up. And hand me cinnamon if you would be so kind.”

Geiszler gave him what he asked for without another word, just staring into more or less vague point in the distance. In no time did pancakes were ready, their smell filling the whole kitchen and probably even reaching their shared lab.

Newton didn’t say a word unless he took a bite. Only then did he  _ scowl  _ and said, more or less reluctantly:

“As much as it hurts my pride, I feel inclined to admit that these are the best pancakes I’ve eaten in a long while, man. To be honest, they’re so good I would marry them right here and now, if I were just a tiny lil bit more hungry and a tiny lil bit less of myself.”

Hermann rolled his eyes, but smiled at the compliment, carefully hiding it behind the pancake of his own.

“Also I know it might be a bit late for pancakes, because it’s what? Three in the morning? But I just felt like making pancakes and then I was in the kitchen trying to do my thing, when  _ you  _ came, and then it turned out it was a bad idea in the end, to try to make them, however-”

“ _ Newton. _ ”

“Okay,” Newton sighed, smiling at him with that somewhat rare smile that Hermann, somehow,  _ knew _ was reserved mostly for him. “What I wanted to say is that I  _ appreciate  _ your help in the kitchen, and that I feel  _ dumb  _ because my attempt to be nice and make  _ you  _ something to eat fizzled out. So, like, thank you and sorry?”

The lab they were given was divided in half, Newton’s and his belongings laying on the appropriate sides of the undrawn line. Hermann despised kaiju parts on his side of the lab and Newton pretty much disliked having chalk dust anywhere near his precious samples.

However, this small table was an exception. It lied mostly on Newton’s side, however, a great amount of scattered notes belonged to Hermann, not his colleague. It was somewhat a shared table, probably one of those very few things they unspokenly agreed on sharing without constant arguing.

Now, as they were eating semi-sweet pancakes by it, Hermann’s cane resting between him and Newton, everything seemed just right. Not in the casual sense as nothing in their lives could be named as ‘casual’ anymore; it was just a term used to describe some specific events in their shared lives in that shared lab. And in this exact moment, by this shared table, too.

“You’re welcome, Newton,” he replied and took another bite.

Newton didn’t say anything else, indulging himself in the food. Judging by his eagerness, for him it tasted as good as he had described moments ago.

For the very first time in a long time, it was quiet. But, unlike an hour or so prior, Hermann did not mind at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been feeling blue last night and so I've tried to cheer myself up by writing something cute and adorkable with those two. Something less angsty and painful than what PR:U has given us. That's how this short little fic was created, and I hope you liked it!
> 
> Beta by [try_reset](https://archiveofourown.org/users/technorat/), thank you friend!  
> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://ee-void.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
